I am a new grad in CV recovery/CVICU, about 8 weeks into my orientation. When I asked what materials would be good to study, the following was suggested by my preceptor and I am currently reading the Manual of Perioperative Care.
-Cardiac Surgery Essentials for Critical Care Nursing Sonya R. Hardin
-Manual of Perioperative Care in Adult Cardiac Surgery Robert M. Bojar

I am also going to really review hemodynamics since almost every one of my patients have a Swan. If you have not taken ACLS you should highly consider it, or at minimum purchase the book and study it.

Oh wow, my orientation is 11 months! I will do 2 weeks in Tele, CVOR, Cath lab, Cardiac rehab while completing the Versant program and then 16-24 weeks of CVR.

My facility is also providing in house classes on topics such as balloon pumps, pacemakers, cardiac surgery, hemodynamics, and 12 leads.
This is the first time this facility has accepted new grads to CVR/CVICU and I feel blessed to be there. Best of luck to you!

Hi! Im a new probi nurse in a cardiovascular unit.... I find this thread useful... Can anybody pls share their experience in this unit... Perhaps the usual routine... Cases that are very common.... Medications... And the atmosphere. All will be appreciated! Thanks in advance... Anyway Im from a JCIA accredited hospital...

Have been working on my floor as a new nurse for a little over a year. Biggest advice being new to the floor:

1. Learn you heart rhythms/arrhythmia's AND the interventions for them. You will see a rhythm changes, sometimes symptomatic, sometimes not. It's important to know what you can do to help the patients before you call the doc.

2. Not sure how your units will be set up, but we pull a lot of the cardiac sheaths from the cath lab. Make sure you do as many as possible while you are on orientation with the help and know what to look for after pulled (hematomas (most common), retro-peritoneal bleeds, pseudo-aneurysm etc.)

Get ready for lots of different chest pains, and the basic interventions for that. Knowledge of all the common heart medications is also helpful.

All sounds scary, but I love working on my floor. Couldn't have picked a much better floor to start on, good nurse to pt. ratios. We get a lot of variety because we take a lot of new strokes and people with lung problems as well. We are more of an intermediate care floor. Too sick/complex for med/surg, not sick enough (yet) to need the ICU.

@TopsDrops Thank you so much for those info! I'll surely read on those... By the way my unit does a functional nursing system, instead of a typical primary care nursing... It means there'll be 2 medication nurses and 2 bedside nurses in a shift plus a charge nurse... Its quite toxic in a way that if we woud have a full census of 32patients it wil be divided into 2... So we have a 15:1 ratio in worst cases... And since Im a probitionary nurse I will be bedside for like 6 months. Any advice? seriously im too anxious! Specially to the workload.

My best advice is to get to work early! I usually arrive about 30 mins early so I can get my assignment, then also I have time to look through the doctor's note or nurse's notes for the day. When I take report I can ask about things I read and I am not surprised as much. Also studying those top given cardiac meds is great!

I also agree with getting to work early! I frequently charged when I worked on PCU and I would always arrive at least 30min early...one of the reasons being so that I could make the assignments for my shift; the other reason was so I could start looking at my assigned patient's charts and get a head start on my shift. I feel like I would fall behind if I arrived later than 1830.